Admitting mistakes is a way to build respect and trust. Many leaders think the opposite.
Early in my leadership career I learned the power of admitting mistakes publicly. I had made an error that would cost our group some allocated budget money. I called the team together, described my error, asked for forgiveness, and suggested to pull together as a team to make up for the mistake. I got a very positive show of support at the meeting.
What I did not anticipate was a stream of employees coming into my office for the next couple days telling me that they had never experienced a leader do that before, and it really made a difference in how they saw me.
The technique of publicly admitting mistakes is not effective in every case as there are mistakes that are just plain dumb or leaders who make too many of them. But the ability to publicly admit a rare innocent mistake can have incredible trust building power.
Learn the technique and the caveats in this white paper…